During his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump elicited significant pushback and raised many eyebrows when he proclaimed that: "From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it's going to be 'America First.' " Analysts wondered out loud if he intended to roll out a new period of isolationism, non-interventionism or economic nationalism. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote that Trump's inaugural "radically redefined the American national interest as understood since World War II." Instead of exercising global leadership, the United States was now opting for "insularity and smallness." Conservative journalist Bill Kristol, founder and Editor-at Large of the Weekly Standard, lamented: "I'll be embarrassedly old fashioned here: it is profoundly depressing and vulgar to hear an American president proclaim 'America First.' "
It is questionable whether President Trump really understood what he proclaimed on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol that afternoon. According to a corroborated report published by the Wall Street Journal, his speech was written by chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, both of whom have long been associated with Breitbart and the white supremacist movement. They knew very well that "America First" historically stood for the "America First Committee," which was founded at Yale Law School in 1940. It was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against American entry into WWII, and was characterized by anti-Semitic and pro-Fascist rhetoric. Membership peaked at 800,000 paying members in 450 chapters, and counted people like Charles Lindbergh, Walt Disney and Frank Lloyd Wright among its most prominent members. It was dissolved on December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the war to America. Professor Eric Rauchway of the history department at U.C. Davis summarized the "America First" concept as: A white America, living behind higher walls and screens, lashing out to prove its strength and then retreating again - not a government suspiciously tolerant of foreign threats." (Eric Rauchway, "President Trump's 'America First' slogan was popularized by Nazi sympathizers," Washington Post, Jan. 20, 2017.)
Many who considered the use of this slogan, including, I suspect, Trump himself, may have understood it to refer to some measure of isolationism, a policy or doctrine of trying to isolate one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, and generally attempting to make one's economy self reliant. In its purest form, isolationism is a nation's total retreat from the world stage, something we attempted at various time throughout our history, dating back to the Founders. Our Founding Fathers saw America's geographical separation from Europe as an ideal opportunity to cultivate the new nation in solitude. George Washington suggested that: "Our detached and distant situation [from Europe] invites and enables us to pursue a different course. Thomas Jefferson warned against "entangling alliances." ("A brief history of American isolationism," The Week, June 5, 2016.)
Following the explosion of the battleship USS Maine in the harbor of Havana on February 15, 1898, which killed 260 U.S. sailors, President McKinley ended isolationism by declaring war on Spain. It was revived after the U.S. suffered 116,516 deaths and 320,000 sick and wounded during WWI. Our Senate voted 49-35 against joining The League of Nations, the international organization, substantially conceived by President Woodrow Wilson after the end of WWI to provide a forum for resolving international disputes, and pursued economic issues throughout the 1930's, ignoring the ascend of militaristic dictatorships in Europe and Japan. When war broke out with the invasion of the Sudetenland in 1938 and Poland in 1939, the isolationist Congress kept us out, and the war gave rise to the previously discussed "America First Committee."
Non-interventionism and isolationism, even though distinct, are frequently conceptually confused, while economic nationalism, or protectionism, is often seen as a subset of isolationism. Mr. Trump's expressed proclivity to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel, under the guise of national security and "America First," seems to underscore his confusion as well. The last time this country pursued a significant protectionist policy was during the Hoover administration when the president signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, with tariffs on over 20,000 goods, which exacerbated the Great Depression, and led to retaliatory actions by other nations.
The jury is still out on Trump's protectionist inclinations - the Washington Post calls him a "novice protectionist" - however, it would be a stretch, and it would give the administration too much credit, to connect the president's I augural proclamation to significant policy prescriptions. " Ordering punitive strikes against a regime that murders its own citizens while posing no threat to the United States, as Trump did it Syria, is not isolationism." Nor is it non-interventionism. His intent to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, his threats against North Korea, and his views on the viability of NATO do not suggest disengagement. (Andrew Bacevich, "Saving 'America First,' What Responsible Nationalism Looks Like," Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct, 2017). "Policy" refers to a set of ideas or plans that is used as basis for making decisions. Mr. Trump displays a chaotic mindset, unfocused on recognizable policy principles, which has already negatively affected our global leadership position. Given the administration's behavior during the past 14 months, "America First" appears to simply have been an ill-informed impulse, a slogan co-opted by speech writers expressing their personal political agenda.
Friday, March 23, 2018
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
ANTI SEMITISM PROLIFERATES AS NATIVISM FLOURISHES
A few months ago I reread Leon Uris' harrowing tale "Mila 18," a historical
novel set in German occupied Warsaw, Poland, before and during World War II. This impressive work covered the Nazi Occupation of Poland, and the atrocity of systematically dehumanizing and eliminating the Jewish population of Poland.
The story concentrates on Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto, and, in graphic detail, describes the gradual decimation of a cultural force which once encompassed the largest concentration of Jews in Europe. Prior to the Holocaust, Poland boasted 3.3. million Polish Jews - about 10% of the population. During World War II 20% of the Polish population perished - half of them were 3 million Polish Jews. Many were killed during the ghetto uprising and ongoing pogroms executed by Nazis and Polish collaborators. (Some historians estimated that as many as 200,000 Polish Jews were killed by fellow Poles.) Most were murdered in any of the 6 German extermination camps the Nazis built in Poland. These included the notorious Auschwitz, Birkenau an Treblinka facilities designed and built exclusively to kill prisoners on a massive scale immediately upon arrival. Slightly more than 300,000 Polish Jew survived the war. Most of these fled the country afterwards, many to Israel. Today the Jewish community in Poland has shrunk to 10,000.
Given this horrific history, which effectively continued during the immediate post WWII Soviet occupation, and which, to be fair, also affected much of the gentile population, one would expect the remaining population to minimize its expressions of intolerance and bias. As in several other affected countries, Nazi ideologies and symbols did become illegal. However, recently, after newly arisen right-wing populist and nativist parties began filling the political void created by the growing unpopularity of traditional, mostly centrist, organizations, the strength of these regulations diminished. In Poland this trend started with the arrival of the "Law and Justice Party," found in 2001, and gaining political dominance in 2005. Led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and supported by President Andrzej Duda , "Law an Justice," claiming absolute majorities in the Polish Parliament, seized control of public media and the courts, and gradually began assuming authoritarian rule. Fueled by Europe's migration crisis and economic problems, and endorsed by growing numbers of the, often young, unemployed or underemployed of an increasingly disaffected segment of the population. Like what happened in much of Europe, Poland's traditional, moderating, center-left labor parties lost public supports and influence. Many of its positions were co-opted and tweaked by the dominant party. The result has been that we now begin to see "Charleston-like" white supremacist led marches and demonstrations in support of the current government, ostensibly showing anti-immigrant, and increasingly anti-Semitic content. While the initial focus of this nativist noise centered on hatred of mostly Muslim migrants, an expression of Islamophobia, anti-Semitic Muslim migrants paradoxically, in an ideological sense, joined forces with anti-Jewish nativist groups, thereby intensifying the impact on the Jewish population. To Polish youth groups clamoring for a "return" to a white-Catholic Poland, this incongruity has grown into an uncomfortable marriage of convenience, ultimately making Jews susceptible to attacks from an even larger segment of the population.
Anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland and other European countries gradually proliferated. As the European migration crisis escalated, right-wing nativist movements grew in popularity and influence, facilitating sympathetic governments' ability to enact policies supporting their political slant. Poland's "Law and Justice Party" recently adopted a new anti-defamation law, which makes it a crime for anyone , in any part of the world, to accuse the "Polish nation" of complicity in Nazi war crimes. In other words, it asserted that, by law, Poland was not complicit in the Holocaust, a denial which had no impact on popular attitudes towards its Jewish population. A study produced by the University of Warsaw reported a sharp increase in negative attitudes and acceptance of hate speech towards Jews. Approximately 56% of people interviewed said they di not want a Jewish person in their family, 32% did not want Jewish neighbors, and 24% of younger Poles admitted to making anti-Semitic remarks.
In Germany where, only four years after its founding, the anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, "Alternative for Germany" (AFD) party, recently became the third largest political party in parliament, 62% of Jewish survey respondents reported that they experienced anti-Semitism in their everyday life. A Berlin Imam, Abu Bilal Ismail, reportedly called on Allah to "destroy the Zionist Jews - count them and kill them all," and a segment of AFD party members is actively pushing to have Nazi soldiers remembered as patriots. (Austin Davis, "Germany's rising anti-Semitism haunts Jews," USA Today, Dec. 22, 2017). In France, which houses 475,000 Jews and around 5 million, pro-Palestinian, Muslims, synagogues are being attacked, kosher supermarkets smashed and looted, and crowds are chanting "death to Jews,' and "slit Jews throats." (Marie Brenner, "The troubling question in the Jewish community: Is it time to leave?" Vanity Fair, July 8, 2015). In Italy racist and anti-Semitic incidents increased more than ten-fold between 2012 and 2016. This activity played an unprecedented role in its most recent lection during which hard-right populists won better than 50% of the vote.
Last year, in the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League reported a 57% surge in anti-Semitic incidents, totaling 1,986, up from 1,267 in 2016. his was the single largest one year spike since 1979. according to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt "this alarming increase appears to be fueled by emboldened far-right extremists, as well as the divisive state of our national discourse." According to Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis: "It is not a big deal to hate Jews. The first group that gets attacked is the Jews."
As far-right nativists and populists increasingly assume political control in country after country, as they already have in Poland, Hungary, Austria, and potentially in Germany and Italy, anti-Semitic rhetoric is bound to proliferate. Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA Federation of New York, in an interview with The Times o Israel, sent us a succinct warning: "The world is witnessing an alarming rise in acts of anti-Semitism, and we must do all we can to respond to this growing threat. History has shown us the ramifications of silence." We all need to remember what happened when another populist movement gradually replaced the Weimar Republic in Germany.
Yes, it can happen again!
novel set in German occupied Warsaw, Poland, before and during World War II. This impressive work covered the Nazi Occupation of Poland, and the atrocity of systematically dehumanizing and eliminating the Jewish population of Poland.
The story concentrates on Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto, and, in graphic detail, describes the gradual decimation of a cultural force which once encompassed the largest concentration of Jews in Europe. Prior to the Holocaust, Poland boasted 3.3. million Polish Jews - about 10% of the population. During World War II 20% of the Polish population perished - half of them were 3 million Polish Jews. Many were killed during the ghetto uprising and ongoing pogroms executed by Nazis and Polish collaborators. (Some historians estimated that as many as 200,000 Polish Jews were killed by fellow Poles.) Most were murdered in any of the 6 German extermination camps the Nazis built in Poland. These included the notorious Auschwitz, Birkenau an Treblinka facilities designed and built exclusively to kill prisoners on a massive scale immediately upon arrival. Slightly more than 300,000 Polish Jew survived the war. Most of these fled the country afterwards, many to Israel. Today the Jewish community in Poland has shrunk to 10,000.
Given this horrific history, which effectively continued during the immediate post WWII Soviet occupation, and which, to be fair, also affected much of the gentile population, one would expect the remaining population to minimize its expressions of intolerance and bias. As in several other affected countries, Nazi ideologies and symbols did become illegal. However, recently, after newly arisen right-wing populist and nativist parties began filling the political void created by the growing unpopularity of traditional, mostly centrist, organizations, the strength of these regulations diminished. In Poland this trend started with the arrival of the "Law and Justice Party," found in 2001, and gaining political dominance in 2005. Led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and supported by President Andrzej Duda , "Law an Justice," claiming absolute majorities in the Polish Parliament, seized control of public media and the courts, and gradually began assuming authoritarian rule. Fueled by Europe's migration crisis and economic problems, and endorsed by growing numbers of the, often young, unemployed or underemployed of an increasingly disaffected segment of the population. Like what happened in much of Europe, Poland's traditional, moderating, center-left labor parties lost public supports and influence. Many of its positions were co-opted and tweaked by the dominant party. The result has been that we now begin to see "Charleston-like" white supremacist led marches and demonstrations in support of the current government, ostensibly showing anti-immigrant, and increasingly anti-Semitic content. While the initial focus of this nativist noise centered on hatred of mostly Muslim migrants, an expression of Islamophobia, anti-Semitic Muslim migrants paradoxically, in an ideological sense, joined forces with anti-Jewish nativist groups, thereby intensifying the impact on the Jewish population. To Polish youth groups clamoring for a "return" to a white-Catholic Poland, this incongruity has grown into an uncomfortable marriage of convenience, ultimately making Jews susceptible to attacks from an even larger segment of the population.
Anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland and other European countries gradually proliferated. As the European migration crisis escalated, right-wing nativist movements grew in popularity and influence, facilitating sympathetic governments' ability to enact policies supporting their political slant. Poland's "Law and Justice Party" recently adopted a new anti-defamation law, which makes it a crime for anyone , in any part of the world, to accuse the "Polish nation" of complicity in Nazi war crimes. In other words, it asserted that, by law, Poland was not complicit in the Holocaust, a denial which had no impact on popular attitudes towards its Jewish population. A study produced by the University of Warsaw reported a sharp increase in negative attitudes and acceptance of hate speech towards Jews. Approximately 56% of people interviewed said they di not want a Jewish person in their family, 32% did not want Jewish neighbors, and 24% of younger Poles admitted to making anti-Semitic remarks.
In Germany where, only four years after its founding, the anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, "Alternative for Germany" (AFD) party, recently became the third largest political party in parliament, 62% of Jewish survey respondents reported that they experienced anti-Semitism in their everyday life. A Berlin Imam, Abu Bilal Ismail, reportedly called on Allah to "destroy the Zionist Jews - count them and kill them all," and a segment of AFD party members is actively pushing to have Nazi soldiers remembered as patriots. (Austin Davis, "Germany's rising anti-Semitism haunts Jews," USA Today, Dec. 22, 2017). In France, which houses 475,000 Jews and around 5 million, pro-Palestinian, Muslims, synagogues are being attacked, kosher supermarkets smashed and looted, and crowds are chanting "death to Jews,' and "slit Jews throats." (Marie Brenner, "The troubling question in the Jewish community: Is it time to leave?" Vanity Fair, July 8, 2015). In Italy racist and anti-Semitic incidents increased more than ten-fold between 2012 and 2016. This activity played an unprecedented role in its most recent lection during which hard-right populists won better than 50% of the vote.
Last year, in the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League reported a 57% surge in anti-Semitic incidents, totaling 1,986, up from 1,267 in 2016. his was the single largest one year spike since 1979. according to ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt "this alarming increase appears to be fueled by emboldened far-right extremists, as well as the divisive state of our national discourse." According to Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis: "It is not a big deal to hate Jews. The first group that gets attacked is the Jews."
As far-right nativists and populists increasingly assume political control in country after country, as they already have in Poland, Hungary, Austria, and potentially in Germany and Italy, anti-Semitic rhetoric is bound to proliferate. Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA Federation of New York, in an interview with The Times o Israel, sent us a succinct warning: "The world is witnessing an alarming rise in acts of anti-Semitism, and we must do all we can to respond to this growing threat. History has shown us the ramifications of silence." We all need to remember what happened when another populist movement gradually replaced the Weimar Republic in Germany.
Yes, it can happen again!
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
ANOTHER 17 CHILDREN MASSACRED - WHO WILL BE NEXT?
The headlines have become commonplace, and the official responses from many of our so-called legislative leaders have become predictable and morbidly routine. A 19-year old gunman, armed with an AR-15 assault weapon, killed 17 and injured 14 at Marjory Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day. While the majority of us are crying in sympathy with the horrendous reality experienced by parents, family members, friends, neighbors and loved ones whose lives have been shattered, the majority of our legislators continue to pay homage to the gun lobby, and allow themselves to be bribed by the NRA. House Speaker Paul Ryan gave the stock response we have all become accustomed to: "Take a breath and collect the facts. We don't just knee-jerk before we even have all the facts and the data." Megyn Kelly, a sometimes controversial political commentator, and host of the NBC morning show "Megyn Kelly Today," offered an impassioned response to this most recent school shooting: "There have been at least 12 school shootings in America so far in 2018. It's February 15th. We are averaging one just about every three or four days. How are we doing, America? Everyone O.K. with that? Apparently the answer is yes, because we haven't done anything to stop it. We're going to say how sorry and shocked and sad we are, and then we're going to move on without doing anything. And then we'll express how sorry and sad we are at the next one, and the one after that. Does anyone really think that we are going to do anything after these mass murders? I don't."
Among the multitude of poignant headlines, two stood out for me. Gregory Gibson, an author whose son Galen was killed in a school shooting, wrote an opinion piece for the Feb. 18 New York Times entitled: "Why Wasn't My Son the Last Victim?" And the Wall Street Journal of Feb. 17 dedicated a full page to "Three Decades of School Shootings," which listed many of the more than 150 children and adults that have been killed in more than 70 shootings at kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools, since 1990. Although these school shootings deserve our immediate attention, they don't include the many other mass shootings we have experienced. The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization which focuses on collecting this information, reported that from 2015 through 2017 we logged 1,046 mass shootings, which resulted in 1,260 dead and 4,667 wounded. Almost all of these mass murders involved the use of "America's most popular weapon," the AR-15 - a weapon which, according to the NRA, thanks its popularity to being "customizable, adaptable, reliable and accurate, and is versatile because it can be used for sport shooting, hunting and self-defense situations. (William Cummings and Bart Jansen, "Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings," USA Today, Feb. 15, 2018.)
Every year roughly 35,000 Americans are killed with guns. This number includes suicides. Deaths from gun homicides in the U.S. totals 27 shot dead EVERY DAY of the year. By contrast, Japan only suffers 10, the U.K. 60, and France 130 EACH YEAR The U.S. is the only country featuring a right to keep and bear arms without constitutional restrictions. The National Rifle Association wants to insure it stays that way. As the lobbying arm of the gun industry, which in 2016 collected $51.3 billion in aggregate revenue, it will do everything to protect the industry, and oppose any form of regulation, reasonable or not. This includes granting gun permits to blind people in Iowa, or opposing the development of smart guns using biometrics, which would only allow the owners of guns to operate them. This would be especially relevant, since many killings are allegedly perpetrated with stolen weapons. Between 2005 and 2010, an average of 232,000 guns were stolen each year. Smart guns could make these guns useless to the criminals that steal them.
All of this information is common knowledge. However, to NRA hardliners this is inconsequential. Its supporters will spin the available data for political purposes. After all, the organization spends millions of dollars to keep the lid on any legislation it opposes. In 2016 it spent $51 million on the election - $31 million of which went to support Donald Trump, while the top 12 legislative recipients received a combined $48 million in bribe money.
A common deflection of pro-gun legislators when responding to massacres, is to blame them on perpetrators with mental issues. The problem with that argument is that we are not the only country with people suffering from mental illness - but in other counties these people don't stage massacres. The issue is not mental illness, the issue is easy access to guns, more specifically assault weapons. Besides, after the "Sandy Hook" killings, President Obama issued an executive order stipulating that the roughly 75,000 people who receive Social Security disability benefits due to mental impairments needed to be included in a data base that would keep them from buying guns. The NRA opposed the ruling, and President Trump deleted it shortly after taking office. That's some of what $31 million will buy. In the mean time Americans are 20 times more likely to get killed by guns than citizens of any other developed country, and, according to the Center for Disease Control, we have a 1 in 315 lifetime chance of dying that way.
While using circular arguments ("when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"), the NRA will continue to oppose any attempt at getting this pandemic under control. They see themselves as the savior of our Second Amendment. They have become a semi-religious organization for many of its supporters, and they continue to hold sway over enough gutless legislators to keep sensible regulations from being adopted. In the words of Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., while admonishing his colleagues: "If you are not working to try to fix this, to try to stop these shootings, then you're an accomplice." In other words, when you allow yourself to be bribed with blood money, you end up with blood on your hands. It make you wonder if we should not label the NRA a terrorist organization.
One of the fathers whose daughter was killed in Parkland last Valentine's Day, while participating in a White House discussion on the subject on Feb. 26, very pointedly expressed his extreme frustration by exclaiming: "I am pissed!" Perhaps, if enough of us come together expressing the same sentiment, we can start something.
Among the multitude of poignant headlines, two stood out for me. Gregory Gibson, an author whose son Galen was killed in a school shooting, wrote an opinion piece for the Feb. 18 New York Times entitled: "Why Wasn't My Son the Last Victim?" And the Wall Street Journal of Feb. 17 dedicated a full page to "Three Decades of School Shootings," which listed many of the more than 150 children and adults that have been killed in more than 70 shootings at kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools, since 1990. Although these school shootings deserve our immediate attention, they don't include the many other mass shootings we have experienced. The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization which focuses on collecting this information, reported that from 2015 through 2017 we logged 1,046 mass shootings, which resulted in 1,260 dead and 4,667 wounded. Almost all of these mass murders involved the use of "America's most popular weapon," the AR-15 - a weapon which, according to the NRA, thanks its popularity to being "customizable, adaptable, reliable and accurate, and is versatile because it can be used for sport shooting, hunting and self-defense situations. (William Cummings and Bart Jansen, "Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings," USA Today, Feb. 15, 2018.)
Every year roughly 35,000 Americans are killed with guns. This number includes suicides. Deaths from gun homicides in the U.S. totals 27 shot dead EVERY DAY of the year. By contrast, Japan only suffers 10, the U.K. 60, and France 130 EACH YEAR The U.S. is the only country featuring a right to keep and bear arms without constitutional restrictions. The National Rifle Association wants to insure it stays that way. As the lobbying arm of the gun industry, which in 2016 collected $51.3 billion in aggregate revenue, it will do everything to protect the industry, and oppose any form of regulation, reasonable or not. This includes granting gun permits to blind people in Iowa, or opposing the development of smart guns using biometrics, which would only allow the owners of guns to operate them. This would be especially relevant, since many killings are allegedly perpetrated with stolen weapons. Between 2005 and 2010, an average of 232,000 guns were stolen each year. Smart guns could make these guns useless to the criminals that steal them.
All of this information is common knowledge. However, to NRA hardliners this is inconsequential. Its supporters will spin the available data for political purposes. After all, the organization spends millions of dollars to keep the lid on any legislation it opposes. In 2016 it spent $51 million on the election - $31 million of which went to support Donald Trump, while the top 12 legislative recipients received a combined $48 million in bribe money.
A common deflection of pro-gun legislators when responding to massacres, is to blame them on perpetrators with mental issues. The problem with that argument is that we are not the only country with people suffering from mental illness - but in other counties these people don't stage massacres. The issue is not mental illness, the issue is easy access to guns, more specifically assault weapons. Besides, after the "Sandy Hook" killings, President Obama issued an executive order stipulating that the roughly 75,000 people who receive Social Security disability benefits due to mental impairments needed to be included in a data base that would keep them from buying guns. The NRA opposed the ruling, and President Trump deleted it shortly after taking office. That's some of what $31 million will buy. In the mean time Americans are 20 times more likely to get killed by guns than citizens of any other developed country, and, according to the Center for Disease Control, we have a 1 in 315 lifetime chance of dying that way.
While using circular arguments ("when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"), the NRA will continue to oppose any attempt at getting this pandemic under control. They see themselves as the savior of our Second Amendment. They have become a semi-religious organization for many of its supporters, and they continue to hold sway over enough gutless legislators to keep sensible regulations from being adopted. In the words of Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., while admonishing his colleagues: "If you are not working to try to fix this, to try to stop these shootings, then you're an accomplice." In other words, when you allow yourself to be bribed with blood money, you end up with blood on your hands. It make you wonder if we should not label the NRA a terrorist organization.
One of the fathers whose daughter was killed in Parkland last Valentine's Day, while participating in a White House discussion on the subject on Feb. 26, very pointedly expressed his extreme frustration by exclaiming: "I am pissed!" Perhaps, if enough of us come together expressing the same sentiment, we can start something.
Monday, February 19, 2018
DOES GERRYMANDERING AFFECT DEMOCRATIC OUTCOMES?
With the run-up to this year's mid-term elections around the corner, the debate about the constitutionality, or basic fairness, of partisan gerrymandering of electoral district has resurfaced with intensity. The practice of gerrymandering refers to drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one party an unfair advantage over its rivals. Every ten years, beginning in 1790, the U.S. government has taken a census, an official count of its population. The Constitution requires this to be done to determine how many seats in the House of Representatives each state should have. Federal law requires a state to redraw the map of their congressional districts when they gain or lose as a result of a reapportionment of districts to that state. In 65% of the states legislatures are charged with the primary responsibility to create this redistricting plan. Much of the time oversight by partisan majorities has led to gerrymandered boundaries intended to help enhance the electoral dominance of the party in charge of the process.
The temptation to take advantage of this process is not new. Politicians have been redrawing district lines for their own advantage since the days of the founding fathers when Patrick Henry gerrymandered a Virginia district to try to keep James Madison out of Congress. The term "gerrymandering" was first used in 1812 by the Boston Gazette, after then Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redistricting the Massachusetts state senate election districts in such a way as to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. One of the mapped contorted districts to the north of Boston was said to have resembled the shape of a salamander. The Gazette blended that observation with the governor's last name to create the word "gerrymander," which has stuck ever since. Although the Federalists handily won the House and the governorship that year, as a direct result of Governor Gerry's maneuvering, the state Senate remained solidly in Democratic-Republican hands.
As technology improved our ability to use more and more sophisticated analytical tools, the gerrymander process has become more effective, and, after the 2010 census, increasingly more blatant. After Republicans suffered sweeping losses to Barack Obama in 2008, one of their strategists, Chris Jankowski, hatched a scheme to target the redistricting process following the outcome of the 2010 census. The project as dubbed "Operation Redmap," "Redistricting Majority Project." Jankowski targeted states in which legislatures would be in charge of redrawing district boundaries, flip as many chambers as possible, take control of the process, and redraw the lines to effectively consolidate Republican gains. The party invested $30 million in this project, and it has been exceedingly successful in retaking control of the House of Representatives.
Mid-2017, using a new statistical method of calculating partisan advantages designed to detect potential political gerrymandering, the Associate Press scrutinized the outcome of all 435 U.S. House races in the 2016 election. The analysis concluded, among other things, that Republicans won as many as 22 additional U.S. House seats over what would normally have been expected, based on the average vote hare in congressional districts across the country. Traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Virginia were among those showing significant Republican advantages. All had districts drawn up by Republicans following the 2010 census. (David Lieb, "AP analysis shows gerrymandering benefitted GOP in 216," June 25, 2017). A separate analysis by Princeton University concurred that Republican advantages in some states were "no fluke."
Our next census is scheduled for 2020. I for no other reason, partisans on all sides have a significant stake in the outcomes of the 2018 mid-term elections. The party ending up dominating the majority of state legislatures will take charge of redrawing the electoral district maps for the subsequent ten years. It is therefore no coincidence that multiple challenges contesting district boundaries that could help determine electoral results this year have been challenged in court, ultimately ending up in the U.S. Supreme Court. While the court has consistently found certain types of racial gerrymandering to be illegal, it has had a more difficult time applying similar rules to partisan gerrymandering. (Lois Beckett, "Is Partisan Gerrymandering Unconstitutional?," Pro Publica, Nov. 7, 20111). Thus far the Supreme Court has agreed to take up partisan gerrymandering appeals from Maryland, Wisconsin and North Carolina, cases in which lower courts have judged that their legislative district plans violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution. In the North Carolina case, aa three judge panel pointed out that the legislator who drew the map, Representative David Lewis, blatantly acknowledged: "I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So, I drew this map to help foster what I think is best for the country."
The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, after analyzing the 2012 an 2016 congressional elections, reported that there is "clear evidence that gerrymandering is distorting the nation's congressional maps, posing a threat to democracy." Gerrymandering has become so aggressive, extreme, and effective, that there is an urgent need for the Supreme Court to set boundaries and finally establish a legal standard.
The temptation to take advantage of this process is not new. Politicians have been redrawing district lines for their own advantage since the days of the founding fathers when Patrick Henry gerrymandered a Virginia district to try to keep James Madison out of Congress. The term "gerrymandering" was first used in 1812 by the Boston Gazette, after then Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redistricting the Massachusetts state senate election districts in such a way as to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. One of the mapped contorted districts to the north of Boston was said to have resembled the shape of a salamander. The Gazette blended that observation with the governor's last name to create the word "gerrymander," which has stuck ever since. Although the Federalists handily won the House and the governorship that year, as a direct result of Governor Gerry's maneuvering, the state Senate remained solidly in Democratic-Republican hands.
As technology improved our ability to use more and more sophisticated analytical tools, the gerrymander process has become more effective, and, after the 2010 census, increasingly more blatant. After Republicans suffered sweeping losses to Barack Obama in 2008, one of their strategists, Chris Jankowski, hatched a scheme to target the redistricting process following the outcome of the 2010 census. The project as dubbed "Operation Redmap," "Redistricting Majority Project." Jankowski targeted states in which legislatures would be in charge of redrawing district boundaries, flip as many chambers as possible, take control of the process, and redraw the lines to effectively consolidate Republican gains. The party invested $30 million in this project, and it has been exceedingly successful in retaking control of the House of Representatives.
Mid-2017, using a new statistical method of calculating partisan advantages designed to detect potential political gerrymandering, the Associate Press scrutinized the outcome of all 435 U.S. House races in the 2016 election. The analysis concluded, among other things, that Republicans won as many as 22 additional U.S. House seats over what would normally have been expected, based on the average vote hare in congressional districts across the country. Traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Virginia were among those showing significant Republican advantages. All had districts drawn up by Republicans following the 2010 census. (David Lieb, "AP analysis shows gerrymandering benefitted GOP in 216," June 25, 2017). A separate analysis by Princeton University concurred that Republican advantages in some states were "no fluke."
Our next census is scheduled for 2020. I for no other reason, partisans on all sides have a significant stake in the outcomes of the 2018 mid-term elections. The party ending up dominating the majority of state legislatures will take charge of redrawing the electoral district maps for the subsequent ten years. It is therefore no coincidence that multiple challenges contesting district boundaries that could help determine electoral results this year have been challenged in court, ultimately ending up in the U.S. Supreme Court. While the court has consistently found certain types of racial gerrymandering to be illegal, it has had a more difficult time applying similar rules to partisan gerrymandering. (Lois Beckett, "Is Partisan Gerrymandering Unconstitutional?," Pro Publica, Nov. 7, 20111). Thus far the Supreme Court has agreed to take up partisan gerrymandering appeals from Maryland, Wisconsin and North Carolina, cases in which lower courts have judged that their legislative district plans violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution. In the North Carolina case, aa three judge panel pointed out that the legislator who drew the map, Representative David Lewis, blatantly acknowledged: "I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So, I drew this map to help foster what I think is best for the country."
The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, after analyzing the 2012 an 2016 congressional elections, reported that there is "clear evidence that gerrymandering is distorting the nation's congressional maps, posing a threat to democracy." Gerrymandering has become so aggressive, extreme, and effective, that there is an urgent need for the Supreme Court to set boundaries and finally establish a legal standard.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
1968, THE YEAR THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
In January of 1968, fifty years ago, brandishing a CR1 (conditional resident) visa, indicating marriage to a U.S. citizen, I legally entered the United States. I did not expect gold-plated sidewalks. However, I was ill prepared when I arrived in New York in the middle of a protracted garbage strike. First impressions do matter. I did not linger long, and proceeded to California, to my wife's home in San Carlos.
Immigration is not for the fainthearted. It does help to be a bit naïve. I left The Netherlands because I felt that the country had become provincial and somewhat narrow-minded. This perception had probably more to do with the country's size, population density, and the area in which I grew up, than with its culture. I arrived with a high school level English language proficiency, $300 in my pocket, and an offer of temporary lodging from my in-laws, people I had never met. While I focused on the promise of, ill defined and still intangible, future opportunities, I gradually began to realize that I had left my Dutch family and all my friends behind. I had moved from the relative comfort of a familiar environment for one presenting new challenges at every turn. My life in Holland had been fairly uncomplicated, and could potentially have become financially secure in a rapidly expanding family business. I surrendered the security of universal healthcare, and the cradle to grave protection of the Dutch welfare state. And I quickly found out that I had transitioned from being part of a relatively tolerant culture to being immersed into a more fractious one. Yet, I was fully convinced that I made the right decision, and I looked forward to showing the people back home that I had moved to the promised land.
Idealism transitioned into a challenging reality soon enough. Having served two years in the army in The Netherlands, a NATO partner, I was, by treaty, not obligated to serve in the U.S. military. However, I was required to register for the draft. A few weeks after I submitted my registration I received the news that the Draft Board, in its wisdom, had decided to give me a 1-A classification, meaning that I was "available for military service." The TET offensive in Vietnam kicked off January 31 that year, and, at the time, every week more than 500 U.S. service members were killed in action. Needless to say, I had to get this obvious error corrected, or catch the next flight back to where I had come from. I had no intention of becoming part of that statistic. Since I could not take care of this over the phone, I confronted the responsible clerk in San Francisco. She exhibited her ignorance when she admitted she could not find "Holland" on her list of NATO countries. I pointed at "The Netherlands," indicating that that was one and the same. I still remember her asking me if Denmark was the same as well.............
I also quickly found out that my limited vocabulary affected my self confidence. My father had admonished me that I did not need to get a car right away, that I should use public transportation. The reality on the ground dictated the need to acquire my own transportation, however, this meant getting a driver license. Passing a driver's test in Holland had always been very involved. I was uncertain that I really wanted to go through this over here, especially since my father-in-law had provided us with a car twice he size of anything I ever drove in Europe. After essentially memorizing a study guide, I took a deep breath, and walked into the DMV. They did not make me drive, and I aced the written test. Challenge overcome.
It took a while before my level of confidence improved appreciably. I reluctantly recognized that I needed to overcome obstacles native-born citizens were not confronted with. Finding work proved difficult. However, the more you interview, the more proficient you become. Sears finally hired me as a sporting goods salesman, and after circling the Admin Building at De Anza College several times, I finally got up the nerve to walk in to register for an English class - even though I felt offended when I was forced to take a remedial class instead of English 1-A. That decision initiated a life-long affection for the academic life.
And so it went.
In the mean time, 1968 developed into one of the most turbulent years of the 20th Century. The TET offensive changed the course of the Vietnam war. On March 16 U.S. troops from Charlie Company rampaged through My Lai, killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians. On March 31 President Johnson withdrew from his bid to be re-nominated as a candidate for re-election. On April 4 Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots followed, and 46 people were killed. On June 5, in Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy, who was well on his way to become the Democratic Party's nominee for president. During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, when Hubert Humphrey was nominated , violent demonstrations and street fights with Chicago police anchored the event in full view of the entire world. And in November that year Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were elected to take over the White House.
Normally, these events would have prompted my European family to question my sanity, were it not that in Europe that year France, Italy, Northern Ireland, Czechoslovakia and other countries were also on fire. The world changed in 1968. It became a year of seismic social and political change across the globe. Buried in the midst of it all were the trials and tribulations that changed my life.
Over time I managed to eke out a career, and after some personal setbacks during the later seventies, I met and married a beautiful individual with whom I will celebrate a 38-year partnership in 2018. Fifty years later, I am more comfortable at home in my adopted country than in Holland. However, its history and culture will always remain part of my DNA.
Immigration is not for the fainthearted. It does help to be a bit naïve. I left The Netherlands because I felt that the country had become provincial and somewhat narrow-minded. This perception had probably more to do with the country's size, population density, and the area in which I grew up, than with its culture. I arrived with a high school level English language proficiency, $300 in my pocket, and an offer of temporary lodging from my in-laws, people I had never met. While I focused on the promise of, ill defined and still intangible, future opportunities, I gradually began to realize that I had left my Dutch family and all my friends behind. I had moved from the relative comfort of a familiar environment for one presenting new challenges at every turn. My life in Holland had been fairly uncomplicated, and could potentially have become financially secure in a rapidly expanding family business. I surrendered the security of universal healthcare, and the cradle to grave protection of the Dutch welfare state. And I quickly found out that I had transitioned from being part of a relatively tolerant culture to being immersed into a more fractious one. Yet, I was fully convinced that I made the right decision, and I looked forward to showing the people back home that I had moved to the promised land.
Idealism transitioned into a challenging reality soon enough. Having served two years in the army in The Netherlands, a NATO partner, I was, by treaty, not obligated to serve in the U.S. military. However, I was required to register for the draft. A few weeks after I submitted my registration I received the news that the Draft Board, in its wisdom, had decided to give me a 1-A classification, meaning that I was "available for military service." The TET offensive in Vietnam kicked off January 31 that year, and, at the time, every week more than 500 U.S. service members were killed in action. Needless to say, I had to get this obvious error corrected, or catch the next flight back to where I had come from. I had no intention of becoming part of that statistic. Since I could not take care of this over the phone, I confronted the responsible clerk in San Francisco. She exhibited her ignorance when she admitted she could not find "Holland" on her list of NATO countries. I pointed at "The Netherlands," indicating that that was one and the same. I still remember her asking me if Denmark was the same as well.............
I also quickly found out that my limited vocabulary affected my self confidence. My father had admonished me that I did not need to get a car right away, that I should use public transportation. The reality on the ground dictated the need to acquire my own transportation, however, this meant getting a driver license. Passing a driver's test in Holland had always been very involved. I was uncertain that I really wanted to go through this over here, especially since my father-in-law had provided us with a car twice he size of anything I ever drove in Europe. After essentially memorizing a study guide, I took a deep breath, and walked into the DMV. They did not make me drive, and I aced the written test. Challenge overcome.
It took a while before my level of confidence improved appreciably. I reluctantly recognized that I needed to overcome obstacles native-born citizens were not confronted with. Finding work proved difficult. However, the more you interview, the more proficient you become. Sears finally hired me as a sporting goods salesman, and after circling the Admin Building at De Anza College several times, I finally got up the nerve to walk in to register for an English class - even though I felt offended when I was forced to take a remedial class instead of English 1-A. That decision initiated a life-long affection for the academic life.
And so it went.
In the mean time, 1968 developed into one of the most turbulent years of the 20th Century. The TET offensive changed the course of the Vietnam war. On March 16 U.S. troops from Charlie Company rampaged through My Lai, killing more than 500 Vietnamese civilians. On March 31 President Johnson withdrew from his bid to be re-nominated as a candidate for re-election. On April 4 Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots followed, and 46 people were killed. On June 5, in Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy, who was well on his way to become the Democratic Party's nominee for president. During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, when Hubert Humphrey was nominated , violent demonstrations and street fights with Chicago police anchored the event in full view of the entire world. And in November that year Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were elected to take over the White House.
Normally, these events would have prompted my European family to question my sanity, were it not that in Europe that year France, Italy, Northern Ireland, Czechoslovakia and other countries were also on fire. The world changed in 1968. It became a year of seismic social and political change across the globe. Buried in the midst of it all were the trials and tribulations that changed my life.
Over time I managed to eke out a career, and after some personal setbacks during the later seventies, I met and married a beautiful individual with whom I will celebrate a 38-year partnership in 2018. Fifty years later, I am more comfortable at home in my adopted country than in Holland. However, its history and culture will always remain part of my DNA.
Monday, January 1, 2018
COAL IN THEIR STOCKINGS
On the Wednesday before Christmas, on the White House Lawn, President Trump accompanied by a sizable gathering of republican legislators, came together to celebrate their only significant legislative achievement of the year. This was a public ceremony spotlighting a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax system. Mr. Trump was lavished with praise by the leaders of the House and the Senate. Obviously elated, the president exclaimed that it was "always a lot of fun when you win." Convinced as ever, he reiterated over and over again "we are winning."
Throughout the run-up to the vote on this legislation Mr. Trump promised that the tax bill constituted a fabulous Christmas gift for the middle class, and that he himself as well as his friends would actually lose financially because of it. However, that too proved to be political banter. At a Friday night dinner at Mar-A-Lago he reportedly greeted a gathering of his wealthy friends with: "You all just got a lot richer." How much richer? Alan Blinder, professor of economic and public affairs at Princeton University, and a former Vice Chairman of the Federal reserve, estimates that Mr. Trump's cut could amount to a minimum of $15 million annually. While billionaires found extravagant goodies in their stockings this Christmas, many others got lumps of coal.
Some of the people discovering coal in their stockings included: the millions of poor kids facing the imminent loss of federal funds for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the 13 million people who may lose their health insurance, the older, sicker, segment of the population who will soon face significant premium increases, and the 800,000 DACA recipients whose fate was again left in limbo during year-end budget negotiations.
The CHIP program was created in 1997 when Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) pushed a bipartisan campaign to create legislation that would secure access to healthcare for 10 million uninsured children nationwide as part of the Balanced Budget Act. Many of these children grew up in working households that made too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Reiterating his support for this program in 2007, Senator Hatch proclaimed that: "No child should have to go without healthcare. The healthcare children receive when they are young will largely determine their quality of life for their adulthood." Nearly half of the country's children ages 3 or younger receive healthcare through this program. However, funding ran out on September 30, 2017. Although prompted by many, Congress missed re-authorization, focusing instead on the tax overhaul. By the end of January, sixteen states, including California, Texas and Florida, will run out of federal funds. By the end of March this will include thirty states, and by June all but two will be out of money. After the tax bill passed without money being allocated to re-fund CHIP, Jackie Speier (D-Ca) lamented: "What we're doing here today is basically saying: "wealthy Americans, big fat Christmas gift for you; Tiny Tim, we're taking your crutch away, from you and all the other kids in the country, and we're putting a lump of coal in your stocking." (NBC News, Dec. 21, 2017).
By including the repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate, which penalized individuals who failed to have health insurance, the writers of the tax bill were able to pay for $338 billion in additional tax cuts over the next decade. However, contrary to a statement the president made, this does not mean that Obamacare has been repealed. What it does mean is that this move will result in an estimated 13 million fewer Americans having health insurance. Without the mandate many of the young and healthy will forgo insurance, diluting the insurance pool to the detriment of the old and frail, and affecting steep premium increases. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts an estimated ten percent increase in premiums in many areas, often for people who can least afford these. For example: a 60-year old not receiving subsidies could face premium increases of $1,781, $1,469, $1,371, and $1,504, respectively, in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Maine. (David Blumenthal, Harvard Business Review, Dec. 19, 2017).
Finally, consider the plight of the 800,000 dreamers who President Obama protected with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In September, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that, effective March 6, 2018, the administration was rescinding the program. Early reports, following discussions between the president and democratic leadership, suggested that a deal had been struck whereby democrats would support a budget agreement in exchange for a permanent DACA fix, including deportation protection, for program participants. Sadly, both continuing resolutions that were past to temporarily keep the government funded did not deliver on that promise. And many republicans appear adamantly opposed to such linkage. This leaves these individuals, many of which only know the U.S. as their home country, uncomfortably in limbo.
So, when President Trump uses "winning" as a mantra, or even as a strategy, we ought to remember, to paraphrase an old saying, that "winners see the gain, while losers endure the pain."
Happy New Year!
Throughout the run-up to the vote on this legislation Mr. Trump promised that the tax bill constituted a fabulous Christmas gift for the middle class, and that he himself as well as his friends would actually lose financially because of it. However, that too proved to be political banter. At a Friday night dinner at Mar-A-Lago he reportedly greeted a gathering of his wealthy friends with: "You all just got a lot richer." How much richer? Alan Blinder, professor of economic and public affairs at Princeton University, and a former Vice Chairman of the Federal reserve, estimates that Mr. Trump's cut could amount to a minimum of $15 million annually. While billionaires found extravagant goodies in their stockings this Christmas, many others got lumps of coal.
Some of the people discovering coal in their stockings included: the millions of poor kids facing the imminent loss of federal funds for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the 13 million people who may lose their health insurance, the older, sicker, segment of the population who will soon face significant premium increases, and the 800,000 DACA recipients whose fate was again left in limbo during year-end budget negotiations.
The CHIP program was created in 1997 when Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) pushed a bipartisan campaign to create legislation that would secure access to healthcare for 10 million uninsured children nationwide as part of the Balanced Budget Act. Many of these children grew up in working households that made too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Reiterating his support for this program in 2007, Senator Hatch proclaimed that: "No child should have to go without healthcare. The healthcare children receive when they are young will largely determine their quality of life for their adulthood." Nearly half of the country's children ages 3 or younger receive healthcare through this program. However, funding ran out on September 30, 2017. Although prompted by many, Congress missed re-authorization, focusing instead on the tax overhaul. By the end of January, sixteen states, including California, Texas and Florida, will run out of federal funds. By the end of March this will include thirty states, and by June all but two will be out of money. After the tax bill passed without money being allocated to re-fund CHIP, Jackie Speier (D-Ca) lamented: "What we're doing here today is basically saying: "wealthy Americans, big fat Christmas gift for you; Tiny Tim, we're taking your crutch away, from you and all the other kids in the country, and we're putting a lump of coal in your stocking." (NBC News, Dec. 21, 2017).
By including the repeal of Obamacare's individual mandate, which penalized individuals who failed to have health insurance, the writers of the tax bill were able to pay for $338 billion in additional tax cuts over the next decade. However, contrary to a statement the president made, this does not mean that Obamacare has been repealed. What it does mean is that this move will result in an estimated 13 million fewer Americans having health insurance. Without the mandate many of the young and healthy will forgo insurance, diluting the insurance pool to the detriment of the old and frail, and affecting steep premium increases. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts an estimated ten percent increase in premiums in many areas, often for people who can least afford these. For example: a 60-year old not receiving subsidies could face premium increases of $1,781, $1,469, $1,371, and $1,504, respectively, in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, and Maine. (David Blumenthal, Harvard Business Review, Dec. 19, 2017).
Finally, consider the plight of the 800,000 dreamers who President Obama protected with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In September, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that, effective March 6, 2018, the administration was rescinding the program. Early reports, following discussions between the president and democratic leadership, suggested that a deal had been struck whereby democrats would support a budget agreement in exchange for a permanent DACA fix, including deportation protection, for program participants. Sadly, both continuing resolutions that were past to temporarily keep the government funded did not deliver on that promise. And many republicans appear adamantly opposed to such linkage. This leaves these individuals, many of which only know the U.S. as their home country, uncomfortably in limbo.
So, when President Trump uses "winning" as a mantra, or even as a strategy, we ought to remember, to paraphrase an old saying, that "winners see the gain, while losers endure the pain."
Happy New Year!
CONGRESSIONAL PROCESS FAVORS ACCUSED SEXUAL MOLESTERS
The recent spate of bombshell allegations of sexual harassment perpetrated by powerful public figures, leading to terminations and forced resignations, almost seem to have become routine. The effect of the "Me Too" post-Weinstein movement is reverberating across the country. However, nowhere is the effect more prominent than at the highest levels of our government. While the resignations of Senators Al Franken (D-Min) and Trent Franks (R-Tex) and Representative John Conyers (D-Mich) are suggestive of public pressure applied by their congressional colleagues, it should not be surprising that all of them would have preferred to have their cases heard by their respective congressional ethics committees. Others, like Representatives Blake Farenthold (R-Tex) and Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev) seem to be holding out to do just that.
In the House and the Senate, ethics committees determine whether a member of Congress violated House or Senate ethics rules. In the Senate, the committee is made up of three Republicans and three Democrats, five men and one woman. These committees can't impose criminal sanctions, but in the most severe cases they can recommend that a member should be expelled. To activate such a recommendation the respective chamber must adopt it by a two thirds majority vote.
What makes this process attractive to accused members of Congress is that, for instance, the Senate Ethics Copmmittee has not issued a public punishment in a decade. The most recent expulsions occurred in 1861 and 1862 when 14 senators were expelled for disloyalty during the Civil War. More recently, in 1995, the committee voted unanimously to expel Senator Bob Packwood. He resigned before the matter was voted on by the full Senate.
It has been alleged that these committees are simply used as tools to bury cases until the public storm passes. They have developed a history of routinely disposing of submitted ethics complaints. In 2016 the Senate committee received 63 complaints of violations, 43 were dismissed out of hand for lack of "subject matter jurisdiction." Even when allegations were judged to have merit, the decision was made that no violation of Senate rules existed. The remaining 20 cases were dismissed for a variety of technical reasons. No case led to disciplinary action.
The closest thing to a Human Resources department for employees of the Legislative Branch of our government is the Office of Compliance, set up by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. The Act was initiated to protect more than 30,000 governmental employees. The O.O.C. Is its administrative arm charged with ensuring its integrity through programs of disputes resoliution, education and enforcement. In a typical case, staffers file complaints of sexual harassment with the O.O.C. The process used to resolve complaints is convoluted and time-consuming, and it is allegedly designed to protect the office of the accused member of Congress. Various sources details specifics.
To recap: After an incident, but before filing an official com plaint, victims are required to go through 30 days of "counseling" with an O.O.C. employee. Following that process, they have 15 days to decide whether they want to pursue the next step, which is 30 days of mandated "mediation." During mediation, a lawyer representing the congressional office gets involved. His or her job is to protect the office and the institution. This lawyer is funded with taxpayer money. If no settlement is reached, there is a 30-day cooling-off period, before a complaint can be filed. If a settlement is reached, it is usually accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement, and paid for with taxpayer money. (Emily Stewart, Vox, Nov. 20, 2017).
Representative Jackie Speier (D-Ca) and others are now pushing Congress to retool this process. According to Speier, the O.O.C. is "toothless" and "a joke." She recently told the House Administration Committee that "for some victims the complaint process is worse than the sexual harassment itself." During a Nov. 20 interview of MSNBC, she reiterated that "we have to make sure that a complaint is taken seriously, and the person who is the victim is not somehow tortured or intimidated into not filing a complaint. That's what it is right now in Congress."
It should not surprise anyone that sexual harassment appears to be prevalent in many state capitols. The ingredients are all there: power, ego, a disproportionate supply of testosterone and an abundance of ambitious young staffers who could worry that speaking up may be a career killer. We have a long way to go to eliminate inappropriate behavior by powerful people in prominent positions. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Mario Batali and others can be fired. But at the pinnacle of power in our government we are stuck with individuals with individuals who, for political reasons, won't be removed. We have a Supreme Court justice who was confirmed by the Senate in 1991, even though he was credibly accused of sexual harassment. And we elected a president, even though he bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault, and who just recently publicly supported an accused pedophile who ran for a Senate seat from Alabama.
Change can't come soon enough. More power to the bi-partisan group of, mostly female, legislators pushing for reform. However, given the intricacies of our congressional decision making process, and the players involved who need to take the lead to affect a satisfactory outcome, nobody should hold their breath.
In the House and the Senate, ethics committees determine whether a member of Congress violated House or Senate ethics rules. In the Senate, the committee is made up of three Republicans and three Democrats, five men and one woman. These committees can't impose criminal sanctions, but in the most severe cases they can recommend that a member should be expelled. To activate such a recommendation the respective chamber must adopt it by a two thirds majority vote.
What makes this process attractive to accused members of Congress is that, for instance, the Senate Ethics Copmmittee has not issued a public punishment in a decade. The most recent expulsions occurred in 1861 and 1862 when 14 senators were expelled for disloyalty during the Civil War. More recently, in 1995, the committee voted unanimously to expel Senator Bob Packwood. He resigned before the matter was voted on by the full Senate.
It has been alleged that these committees are simply used as tools to bury cases until the public storm passes. They have developed a history of routinely disposing of submitted ethics complaints. In 2016 the Senate committee received 63 complaints of violations, 43 were dismissed out of hand for lack of "subject matter jurisdiction." Even when allegations were judged to have merit, the decision was made that no violation of Senate rules existed. The remaining 20 cases were dismissed for a variety of technical reasons. No case led to disciplinary action.
The closest thing to a Human Resources department for employees of the Legislative Branch of our government is the Office of Compliance, set up by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. The Act was initiated to protect more than 30,000 governmental employees. The O.O.C. Is its administrative arm charged with ensuring its integrity through programs of disputes resoliution, education and enforcement. In a typical case, staffers file complaints of sexual harassment with the O.O.C. The process used to resolve complaints is convoluted and time-consuming, and it is allegedly designed to protect the office of the accused member of Congress. Various sources details specifics.
To recap: After an incident, but before filing an official com plaint, victims are required to go through 30 days of "counseling" with an O.O.C. employee. Following that process, they have 15 days to decide whether they want to pursue the next step, which is 30 days of mandated "mediation." During mediation, a lawyer representing the congressional office gets involved. His or her job is to protect the office and the institution. This lawyer is funded with taxpayer money. If no settlement is reached, there is a 30-day cooling-off period, before a complaint can be filed. If a settlement is reached, it is usually accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement, and paid for with taxpayer money. (Emily Stewart, Vox, Nov. 20, 2017).
Representative Jackie Speier (D-Ca) and others are now pushing Congress to retool this process. According to Speier, the O.O.C. is "toothless" and "a joke." She recently told the House Administration Committee that "for some victims the complaint process is worse than the sexual harassment itself." During a Nov. 20 interview of MSNBC, she reiterated that "we have to make sure that a complaint is taken seriously, and the person who is the victim is not somehow tortured or intimidated into not filing a complaint. That's what it is right now in Congress."
It should not surprise anyone that sexual harassment appears to be prevalent in many state capitols. The ingredients are all there: power, ego, a disproportionate supply of testosterone and an abundance of ambitious young staffers who could worry that speaking up may be a career killer. We have a long way to go to eliminate inappropriate behavior by powerful people in prominent positions. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Mario Batali and others can be fired. But at the pinnacle of power in our government we are stuck with individuals with individuals who, for political reasons, won't be removed. We have a Supreme Court justice who was confirmed by the Senate in 1991, even though he was credibly accused of sexual harassment. And we elected a president, even though he bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault, and who just recently publicly supported an accused pedophile who ran for a Senate seat from Alabama.
Change can't come soon enough. More power to the bi-partisan group of, mostly female, legislators pushing for reform. However, given the intricacies of our congressional decision making process, and the players involved who need to take the lead to affect a satisfactory outcome, nobody should hold their breath.
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